


Incentive

by agoodwoman



Series: Instinct Over Reason [4]
Category: The X-Files RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 03:39:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8733319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agoodwoman/pseuds/agoodwoman
Summary: The year was 2011, charity events were approaching and he needed some incentive to put forth a little time for a good cause. As long as it meant nothing, they continued to risk everything for it.





	1. Chapter 1

The engine purred as she raced down the narrow roads of Malibu toward his house. To say she was annoyed she had to make this trip would be an understatement. She felt livid she had to make a gesture for something as simple as a charity auction but then again, he was still him.

A journey toward self-realization can only take you so far in life unless you truly want to change for the better. Meditation, yoga and eating less meat only make you healthier, they don’t necessarily make you a different person.

“ _Selfish prick_ ,” she muttered as she pulled into his driveway.

She punched the buzzer, expecting anyone’s voice except his. Imagine the surprise when he was home.

“It’s me,” she said when he finally answered.

Instead of a quip over her timing or presence at his doorstep, he silently buzzed her in and the gate opened to the property. She parked her convertible as close to a palm tree as she could get it. Adjusting the top on her strapless coral sundress, she was careful as she picked up the box of charity items to carry toward his front door.

“Selfish, impatient prick,” she whispered to herself. “Pampered, selfish, impatient prick.”

When he answered the door, he actually looked happy to see her until she deposited the large box of items in his hands.

“Hi,” he said as he stepped back from the doorway for her to enter.

He kicked the large door closed with his foot and she turned to face him, ready to pounce.

“Of all the things I’ve asked of you over the years, why is charity work for humans in need _such_ a trial of efforts with you?” she asked in an exasperated tone as though they were already in the middle of a fight. “Are we alone?”

He looked at her with a confused expression then down to the box of items in his hands. “You want a drink?”

“I don’t drink,” she reminded him as though he wasn’t around when she was trying to get that monkey off her back.

He saw that downward spiral just like she saw his.

“It’s _virgin_ ,” he told her as he walked past her toward the kitchen. “Raspberry mint something. Supposed to help detox your liver or some bull shit.”

She took off her sandals and followed him into the kitchen with her bag in hand where a pitcher of the blended concoction was sitting with one glass next to a plate of hummus and vegetables.

She liked his hair the length it was, shorter but not as short as it was at the end of the show. He looked thinner than he had over the years but she could see his muscles flexing under the soft cotton of his golf shirt. He changed his diet and routine to keep himself interested in the regime of being healthy. The man could build muscle or drop fat easily and sometimes it left him looking gaunt. Right now, he looked unsuspecting and delicious.

“Where is everyone?” she asked.

“Back east. They’ve got school, filming and the usual,” he told her. “It’s _Tuesday_.”

She looked around the space and realized signs of a family that lived there were scarce. The last time she visited his house there were toys strewn across the living spaces. He looked to be living a life of a bachelor and more lonely than when they first met since there weren’t any dogs sleeping on the furniture to keep him company.

Somehow that cooled her mood slightly.

“What’s going on?” he asked as he set the box down on the counter.

She sat at the stool he had previously vacated to answer the door as some kind of claim on his territory. Food and drink were in front of her and she realized he was about to eat lunch.

“Why didn’t you sign these things like I asked?”

He looked down at the box of items on the counter and she saw the dots connect in his head. “You wanted _all_ of it signed?”

“Why would I send over all of it if I only wanted some of it?” she asked him and she shook her head. “I think sometimes you do this stuff to annoy me purposely.”

He scoffed at her and walked toward the dark cabinets to get a glass. He poured a glass of the purple liquid for her. From the drawer under the island, he retrieved a straw and popped it into her drink with a flourish.

“Try it.”

“Why?” she asked suspiciously.

This was the same man who threw rice at her pretending they were maggots so sometimes she didn’t entirely believe what he was telling her.

“I know how to make three things in this kitchen and the smoothies are one of them,” he said honestly.

“Hard to see how someone could mess up a smoothie,” she said quietly but she tasted the concoction anyway. It was good, not too sweet and the mint was subtle.

Gillian pushed the placemat with the plate to the side and leaned on the counter with her elbow to place her head in her hand. Her long blonde hair tickled her shoulders and she pushed the strands over her back.

“What is it you want?” he asked.

“Are we negotiating right now?”

He made his way around the counter and looked at her with a smug expression she used to find dangerous. Then she found it annoying. Then she found it sexy… Her mind drifted toward those tangents freely with him and she pushed aside the thoughts that landed her in trouble with him time and time again.

He approached her slowly as you might a feral cat and turned her on the stool toward him. “Kiss me hello.”

His wild green eyes with one dilated pupil told her a lot over the years. Nefarious intentions, mischievous plans or impure thoughts could be seen by her with just a moment of eye contact.

A kiss hello would be one of many items on his rider of demands when she asked him to help with charitable events. Anything for animals but charities for people required him to be plied with pretty pleases or something else from her mouth. Over the years, it became more difficult to refrain from the latter.

She licked at her bottom lip and tilted her head back to allow him to kiss her softly on the mouth.

“We can kiss hello, like _friends_ ,” he said.

Except they weren’t just friends who kissed hello and they both knew that. Even though he liked to play it at first like they never fell into bed time and time again at the wrong moments of their lives. It was a common theme in her life that was becoming difficult to navigate through again.

The part of her who liked when things were difficult opened up to the overly friendly greeting. She licked at her bottom lip again, tasting the mint and raspberry from his mouth. “Sure, David, we can kiss hello.”

The anger she felt inside had quelled. She was happy to see him, nonetheless, even if his reasons for getting her there were selfish.

“Did you come all the way out here just to get me to sign this stuff?” he asked as he sat on the stool next to her. He pulled the placemat across the counter to sit between them. “Hummus?”

“Why is everyone in Los Angeles right now on a hummus kick?” she asked as though he was there when every nutritionist and dietician to the stars would start recommending it. “Did someone important buy stock in chickpeas?”

“It’s the protein,” he told her as he dipped a carrot in the beige dip. He held it tantalizingly in front of her mouth and she saw the gleam in his eyes as he waited for her to take the offering. “We’re eating less meat now so we get it from a thick dip that makes you smell like garlic all the time.”

“Maybe if your meat didn’t have so many injected hormones in it,” she replied.

“I like when you say that with your American accent as though your passport isn’t the same as mine,” he dug at her.

She opened her lips and took the carrot stick between her teeth. He held on as she bit down and she watched as he put the other half in his mouth.

The crunch of the carrot inside her ears muffled what he said and she narrowed her eyes.

“Pardon?”

“You came all the way here for some charity shit?” he repeated.

“David, I _told_ you this thing in July was important to me,” she said. “You’re acting like this is the first time I asked you about it.”

He took a sip from his crushed ice concoction and made a thoughtful face. “I have to be honest with you, when you mentioned it before I didn’t think it was going to be an event.”

“We have a date now. People are buying tickets and we want to get an auction going,” she said. “Were you listening to anything I told you over the phone?”

“Apparently not,” he admitted.

She used the straw to muddle the mint at the bottom of her glass and she pulled the plastic tube out to lick off the crushed raspberries. “Are you still coming?”

“I think Nancy put it on the calendar,” he agreed and she watched as his eyes moved from her face down to her mouth.

She sucked the remnants of the drink off her straw and stirred the drink again.

“Jesus,” he whispered and she saw his fists clench.

“I have to be at the airport in five hours. How long will it take you to sign all that?” she asked.

He leaned on his elbow and the petulant look came back across his face. “What’s in it for me if I do all this?”

“Are you bartering for me to whore myself out for a charity?” she challenged but there was a laugh in her voice that gave away she wasn’t entirely offended.

“Isn’t that showbiz?” he teased as he leaned forward.

His hands were in her hair quickly and his mouth was open to hers as he kissed her with a longing and pent-up need to have her. She felt his intentions in a kiss and knew she wouldn’t be leaving there unscathed by his mouth.

Over the last few years, it was easy to just have sex and go about their lives as though it hadn’t hindered on their other more legally binding relationships.

She pulled away from the kiss and touched her lips softly as though she could still feel his mouth on hers. “We can’t.”

“Tell me why not?” he asked.

“I’m married.”

“Not technically,” he reminded her. “Not this time.”

“ _You’re_ married,” she said.

“Technically,” he whispered as he pulled her close to him again.

“I’m still angry,” she admitted as she pushed on his chest and she looked into his eyes.

Things for both of them personally had been tethering apart and she was trying not to add to the frustrations at either of their homes by giving in to what she wanted.

“I miss you,” he said honestly. “I miss my friend.”

The friend he needed in her wasn’t always detrimental to the way they worked on set. Sometimes it felt destructive to fuck the person who drove you crazy but sometimes it was beneficial. She liked to work out the ways he drove her crazy by having him at her mercy as she rode him into oblivion, in the backseat of a car parked in the back of a studio lot with her phone ringing they were needed back on set an hour ago.

“I’m tired of trying to be better than my father was,” he confessed. “I’m sure she’s tired of me trying. You don’t have to worry about hurting anyone on my end.”

“What about mine?” she asked.

He leaned his mouth down to hers and kissed softly. “You like the guilt, remember?”

If she didn’t, it was ridiculous for her to continue to behave in a way that let her roll around in that feeling time and time again.

She pulled his face down to hers and gave into the guilt that would come.

The kisses were fervent and heated. His hands were all over her body as he pulled her to stand and pressed his desire against her belly. It was a quick ascent toward the mutually fulfilling passions of two people who were never the right fit in their youths. Conflicting personalities, differing of opinions and career paths lead them down so many different roads away from each other. Somehow they always came back to the thing that drove them to hate one another in the first place. The sex.

It was always good, fueled with a history of too many late nights on sets and in trailers or at apartments when family and obligations called upon them. They were each other’s worst habit and as long as it meant nothing, they continued to risk everything for it.

Things between them could quickly get out of control the more they publicly denied they had ever been anything but coworkers and sort-of friends. They were more than that to each other over the years and, for a while, they both subscribed to the foolish notion they could be everything with each other.

Except they were still who they were. They were both inherently stubborn, single-minded and driven. It was a benefit to them when they fell into bed with each other over the years but a hindrance on their working relationship. It made it virtually impossible to be around each other 14-16 hours a day at work and built up a tension that seemed to only release when they gave into the basic needs and desires of their bodies.

He held her body in his hands as he was walking her backwards to the table. He wanted her on a surface and somehow the alarms of what they were doing were ringing in her mind.

Gillian pushed on his chest and the kiss broke but they continued their journey across the kitchen.

“We can’t,” she repeated.

He kissed the edge of her hairline at her temple and his hand squeezed at the cheeks of her ass. “Why?”

She had to change her tactics. Reminding him of the other people in their lives never worked to dissuade him when he wanted her. Admittedly, it was always a weak argument. It never mattered who else was in their lives when they felt a claim on each other over everyone else. It wasn’t emotional, it was nothing personal but entirely physical and completely territorial.

“You owe me signatures and I have a flight to catch,” she reminded him.

She was trying not to sound desperate to keep her wits about her but she was feeling close to giving in. She could feel her resolve slipping away and at least if she put up some kind of a fight, the guilt she should feel later on would be easier to handle. If the guilt came. It was fickle about its attendance when the way she felt about the man she was with had fizzled from how it first began.

He looked at the giant clock on the wall above the window and his left hand travelled up the back of her dress to tug on the stretchy band around her breasts. His quick fingers slid around to the front of her dress and brushed along her pert nipples. She realized how much she already wanted him.

“I think I need some incentive,” he bartered as his thumb and forefinger pinched at one nipple lightly. “Sign half now and half later.”

His breath was hot on her ear and she was feeling like an instrument with tight strings needing to be played.

“Why do you think I came here?” she asked as she looked up at him. “I need your help with this.”

Her lips were already swollen from his kisses and her dress was barely holding up around her breasts.

“I think you knew I might want something other than just your company,” he said with a knowing smile. “I think you wanted that too.”

Her tongue swiped at her top lip and she looked at him knowing he would have her naked in that very kitchen in moments if they continued talking like this. She didn’t care.

“Maybe,” she said with a shrug of one shoulder.

She was trying to play it nonchalant but she had missed him and everything he made her feel.

“Do you often show up braless to ask friends you don’t plan on fucking for a favour?” he countered. Both hands were holding onto the sides of her dress and tugged it down so she was exposed in his kitchen. “I wouldn’t mind if you did but I think you planned exactly this.”

“I came here to yell at you,” she said as she reached for the zipper on his jeans.

His cock was straining against the zipper and she thought of all the ways he had used it in the past to help her forget decisions she didn’t want to make.

“Wanna yell my name instead?” he quipped as he sat her on the table.

His mouth found hers again and she gave into this kiss. She wanted him and the distraction of what this brought her.

They were breathing heavily through their noses as each kiss heightened their passion and when she unzipped the fastening, he groaned into her mouth. As her hand reached inside his boxers and her fingers wrapped around his swollen flesh, the kiss broke. He moaned her name long and loudly.

It felt good to touch him like this after so long of touching someone else out of obligation and the binds of a relationship that needed to end. She wanted to feel all of him around her and inside her. She was ready to be completely possessed by him.

She pushed on his chest, maneuvered the dress down her waist and it fell quietly to the floor. She felt his hungry eyes taking in every inch of her nakedness.

“These aren’t exactly the kind of panties one wears to a business meeting,” he said as his fingers hooked around the tiny straps of her nude lace thong.

“The dress is slightly see-through,” she commented.

“I noticed,” he said as he shed her of her last bit of clothing.

“I notice you’re still dressed,” she commented.

His black golf shirt left his body first and she noted the lean muscle he had built up. His jeans fell to the floor next and he kicked them to the side under the bench along the wall.

Kneeling down slowly, he pulled her legs apart and her sex to the edge of the table. His mouth placed small kisses along her thighs as he travelled slowly up to the apex where she suddenly wanted to be tasted. His thumbs pulled her swollen lips apart and his tongue delved between her folds to remind her of all the ways other men failed to make her quake like he did.

Perhaps that was why she tried to limit the number of times she let him into her bed or in this case, naked in his home and being fucked on a table. Nothing and nowhere was off limits when he wanted her and she was happy to oblige every desire.

He made her feel wanton and more than just the mother, actress and object that others tried to lay claim to. He let her take back pieces of herself while he pushed her over the edges of ecstasy. Maybe because the sex between them was more basic and all the junk between them somehow helped her find her absolution.

The release was always more bittersweet and exquisite. As she realized that, she wondered if maybe that’s because he knew her so completely.

His tongue moved in slow circles around her clit and she hooked one leg over his shoulder to encourage him to stay a while. Her excitement was immediate but the build to release could be delayed by every other thing that crept into her mind when she needed it not to.

“Oh God,” she moaned loudly.

In a multitasking move she always appreciated, he moved a hand between his face and her sex. One long finger pushed inside her tight walls. He moaned against her flesh in approval as she felt herself getting wetter.

It was overwhelming to realize he had her completely figured out as he was using his mouth to bring her to sweet release. His finger crooked forward just slightly and found that delightful spot inside her that helped everything break down and fracture inside.

The slow build began and she found the closeness to her release begin to feel like agony as every muscle in her body began to tense. A small burst and a shallow wave overtook her. The small climax she found was limited and she groaned in frustration.

She pushed his face away with the heel of her hand on his forehead and he wiped at the fluids she left on his chin.

“What?” he asked. “Did you come?”

“Sort of,” she said and propped herself up on her elbows as he stood up. “Just enough to feel it but not the kind that made me yell your name.”

“I could try again,” he offered. “Give the little man in a rowboat a ride?”

She fought a laugh because she hated the euphemism but she appreciated his effort nonetheless. “Come here.”

He grabbed her upper arms and pulled her body flush to his. His skin felt hot against hers and she realized how cool she felt from the controlled air inside the Malibu property. The kiss broke as she looked down at the goosebumps on her flesh as his mouth descended on her neck and shoulders. The stubble on his cheeks scratched and burned as his teeth nipped at her skin.

Something felt different between them this time. Every kiss felt like more than just empty sex that made them feel better. A hollow gesture to balm the ache they felt from living so far away used to ease their minds and bodies until the next time, except he was being more tender as he was being rough with her.

Maybe it was an emotional response solitary to her and he was just there to get inside her and find his own release. She had to protect herself from getting too caught up in him and push those feelings aside. It didn’t hurt to think about what they did if the reasons for wanting each other were purely for superficial and base desires.

It could be dangerous for her if this was more than just an afternoon fuck before she retreated back to London. It might be dangerous for him too but he liked to use that word to describe their trysts together. He was supposed to be a man on the mend from backdoor deals with women who meant nothing.

“You’re so sexy,” he whispered as his hands moved up her abdomen and to her breasts.

He laid her down flat on the table and his body moved between hers. She caught the look on his face as one she recognized from years ago. He was feeling it too.

“Gillian,” he whispered as he positioned himself between her thighs.

As the tip of his cock nudged inside, his hand slipped between them and he used his thumb to spread the slickness of her sex around her lips.

As he inched his way inside, his thumb moved in small slow circles around her clit and she felt herself swelling and tightening. She moaned as he touched her and she stretched her arms above her on the table to arch her back up into the sensation.

His free hand moved from her abdomen to cup her breast as she arched up. “You’re so fucking sexy.”

Once he was buried to the hilt, he pulled out just slightly and pushed back in further. It always hurt a little with him because he wasn’t someone you ever grew accustomed to invading the most sacred spaces of your body.

She pushed herself up with the palms of her hands flat against the slick wooden table and wrapped her arm around his neck to hold on. He was going to take her on a ride and she wanted to have the best angle to find her release.

He took her ass in his hands as she wrapped her legs around his waist. They held onto each other tightly as some expertly performed and acrobatic fucking began. The yoga had improved both their flexibility and their endurance.

She made a small grunting noise as he moved her up and down once. His face brushed along her neck and she felt her hair grazing against her back again. The sensations of being completely enthralled while he rocked her back and forth began to build.

“I missed this,” she whispered as their slow rhythm began. “With you.”

“Don’t stay away for so long next time,” he whispered as his fingers dug in harder. His hips sped up and she gripped his waist tighter with her thighs. Their eyes stayed on each other as he whispered to her, “Stop leaving me for other people.”

“You could stop making me leave,” she pointed out.

He kissed her neck and she felt the burn from his teeth as they marked her. “I need to know…”

“What?” she panted.

“I want to know all the ways you’re loyal to me when I’m not with you,” he said and she thought it was a line from a poem he scribbled on a napkin once for her. “Do you think about me when you’re alone?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

His hips pushed harder. “Do you touch yourself when you think about me?”

“Yes.”

“I’m jealous of every other person who sees you like this,” he groaned as his mouth moved up her neck.

He kissed her again and she felt her toes begin to tingle.

It had to mean more to him when he was telling her things like that. She always saw an adoration in his eyes and a lust for her body. As his hips pumped faster and she moved in tandem with him, she felt the breaking apart of her complete and utter resolve.

Every thrust was hitting her clit at the angle she needed. His hardened flesh was up so far inside her, she could split in two. If only she could and part of her could hide away here with him where the only thing she had to worry about was where to give in to their desires next and if the surface area under them was strong enough to hold their combined weight.

“Say the thing you never say,” he urged her as he pounded into her harder than before. “Say it, Gillian.”

He was asking for a confession of love from her. His neediness to her body extended to the emotional ties she kept away from everyone else. Every person she had a relationship with wanted all of her and she couldn’t give it over to them. He only asked for all of it once before and she broke his heart when she wasn’t able to oblige. What they had now worked for them.

Why would he push that boundary now with a sheen of sweat on his forehead and his arousal pushing against her cervix?

“I just want to hear you say it so I know you don’t mean it,” he urged.

He set her backside on the table and gripped the top for leverage as he pummeled into her more fiercely.

“I love you,” she moaned as her body reached the apex he tried for earlier.

The orgasm washed over her body and she felt herself swell and clench around his dick. Her release was bigger, longer, more intense than her first. She cried out his name as he slammed into her one last time as he came.

They were panting, sweating and worn out but they couldn’t move. He was shaking above her as his thighs leaned against the edge of the table. She slowly unhooked her ankles but he stayed inside of her momentarily.

“I almost believed you could mean that,” he said with a gravelly voice.

He kissed her cheek and smiled at her like he could probably focus on what she asked him to do when she got there.

“Why do you ask me to say it?”

He slipped out of her and padded naked across the kitchen to get the box of Kleenex on the counter. He handed her a few to help clean up their mess and he helped her off the table.

He smiled at her sheepishly as he took the mess of tissues from her. “I can sign your charity shit now. I think I have a sharpie around here somewhere.”

She shook her head and left him, with her dress and panties in hand, to clean herself up in the bathroom down the hall. When she returned to the kitchen, he was dressed again and sitting five inches to the left of where he had just been fucking her at the table.

Memorabilia, photos and props along with random items were in front of him with one photograph in hand that he was staring at intently.

“This was a good day,” he noted as she sat down across from him.

She looked at the photo of them in bed together. He was staring up at the camera as her breasts pushed into his chest and her leg was across his lap. He told her during the shoot to stop teasing him as she moved her thigh against his dick. Eventually, she had to place her leg across there to prevent the world from seeing him fully erect on the cover of Rolling Stone.

“I barely remember it,” she lied.

He signed his name with a laugh. “That’s a lie.”

She took the photograph from him and looked at the woman with fiery red hair who had actually been trying to prevent the world from seeing her nipples. The concept blew the minds of everyone who saw the cover because no one thought she was sexy until they had her naked next to him.

“ _No one_ thought I was sexy until we did this photo shoot,” she said quietly.

He snorted as he signed his name across a comic book. “That’s not true. You just didn’t read the internet. Remember when you had to get an email address like four years after everyone else got one?”

“I’m serious,” she replied and she blew the ink on the freshly signed glossy paper. “I wanted to be taken seriously and then I couldn’t get anyone to think I was sexy.”

“I always thought you were sexy,” he told her.

It was the most honest thing he probably ever said to her and she believed him.

“I mean, you were sexy and cute when you were twenty. By the time you were thirty, you were something else like those Brits named you, the crumpet, and now it’s really not fair,” he told her. “It’s actually shocking to see you be this hot, grown-up woman.”

He kept signing his name as he described how he saw her.

“Even when I was fat?” she asked as she held up a picture from the first season promo shoot.

“You were _never_ fat,” he admonished her. “Why do women use that word more times a day when they’re in Los Angeles than any other part of the planet?”

“We see the word on everything as a bad thing,” she told him. “Lose fat, fight fat, get rid of fat and punish your fat.”

He took out another comic book and looked at the drawings. “Men have the same pressure. Most of us walk around looking like bobble head figures.”

He made a face and wiggled his head like he was a wobbling action figure on the dashboard of a car. She laughed and things felt okay between them. He could be funny, she could appreciate it and they could move on about their day without feeling like the orgasms they just gave each other meant anything else.

She suppressed the emotions she felt earlier and realized if she was alone, this wouldn’t be worrying her. It was the fact that she was trying to extract herself from the relationship she jumped into all too quickly.

“Or you look like the other thing,” she commented. “All muscle and no head.”

“What’s that toy?” he thought aloud with a smile. “Those muscle man toys that look like little dicks in a jar.”

She laughed again and he joined her. “No! That’s not a thing.”

“I’m going to find some on eBay and send them to you,” he told her. “It will be like a bouquet of cocks.”

She touched her chest with her fingers lightly. “So romantic, David.”

“Trying to get into that blocked-off heart of yours,” he quipped as he signed his name on another item. “Hungry?”

“I thought all you knew how to make was a smoothie?” she asked.

“I said three things,” he replied. He leaned back against the wall behind him and looked at her. “What can you make?”

“I make lemon chicken…” she started. “Um, I know how to make potatoes a hundred different ways. Salad is easy and straightforward.”

“So actual meals for people,” he noted and she nodded. He nodded too. “I’m not a good host but I can send out for something.”

“Does anyone deliver all the way out here?” she asked as though she hadn’t lived in this area before.

“If you’re a big star like me on a pornographic television show they do,” he teased. “What do you feel like? Salad? Carbs? Wanna be _bad_?”

“I was bad enough earlier,” she said and he winked at her. “I’ll eat whatever you’re ordering.”

He got up from the table and walked across to where some take out menus sat by the phone. She was starting to realize that he was there by himself more than he had a family around him. When he was there with a family, the fridge was full, the house was noisy with children and animals while music played constantly.

She wondered if this residence was a place of punishment or solitude.

She got up from the table and crossed to where the iPod stereo sat on the counter and pressed play. Soft rock filled the quiet space and she felt less pressure to tell him more of her life and how things weren’t working for her personally.

She didn’t know what she wanted to do when it came to her personal life. Nothing she had been trying over the years to make it work was succeeding. It was hard to be a villain her own home for needing what she needed to feel sane. Love and affection were no longer the same thing and she worried he was able to tell she was starting to resent him.

“Should be here in thirty minutes,” he said as he hung up the phone.

She looked across to him where he was standing and she could see the look in his eyes.

“We could kill twenty to twenty five minutes,” he said with heavily laden innuendo.

She felt her body flush with anticipation. “Twenty five minutes is good.”


	2. Chapter 2

 

The restaurant called back ten minutes before anything started to inform them they needed more than a sixty dollar order to qualify for delivery service.

He picked up the keys to his BMW off the counter and twirled the ring around his index finger before catching them with his palm. “I’ll go pick it up.”

He kissed her on the cheek goodbye as though that was the usual gesture for them and left her to hang around in the house alone. The first ten minutes he was gone, she organized the items in the box and realized he had about ten more things to put his signature to. She put those on a pile on the table next to the sharpie he used.

The next block of time he was gone, she used the cleaner under the sink to wash the table where they had their breakdown of reason. She washed the dishes from his makeshift lunch and the smoothie glasses before she caught a whiff of herself.

She smelled like sex and sweat, which normally wouldn’t be a bad thing but she was due to get on a plane in a few hours. Leaving her spouse to get on a plane smelling like she just left his bed was one thing but he was in New York City on business, expecting to meet her at the gates.

“Shit,” she muttered.

Wandering through the house without him there, she felt like an interloper on a life that was fading away. His things were scattered around the space in small increments but mainly, he kept to spaces like the office, the master bedroom and the living room. There was clearly a cleaning service that came through because the impeccable state of the rooms outside his day-to-day existence while he was shooting his Showtime gig was impressive.

She knew that while he paid attention to every detail when it came to a woman’s body, being right in an argument, or knowing a topic, he left a lot on the table when it came to picking up after himself or functioning inside a culinary setting. It was strange that he could be such a perfectionist at so much and falter in small ways as an adult.

The irony would be lost on him entirely or he would find it amusing depending on how he felt that day.

“Such a contrary shit,” she said to herself as she picked up a framed photo of him and a comedian she never particularly cared for but David liked. Somehow that made her like him a little. “Such a smug, contrary shit.”

Up the staircase off the kitchen and to the top floor, she walked into the master suite. It was there she found herself wandering through a space, feeling like a complete uninvited guest.

The furniture inside was more of a style she would recognize for his taste but she assumed they were purchased as a joint venture. A wooden headboard that looked like refurbished shutters to a New England beach home matched the armoire and dresser cabinets. The glossy, dark finish and smooth lines were the California influence to insinuate a higher price tag. A bedside table had been moved from the right side of the room and an expensive flat screen sat on top. Not practical or purposeful but a definite sign of something he had done to drown out the quiet of his mind before he fell asleep.

No one was there. She was alone in a house built on grandeur and privacy, but she hesitated all the same. The linens were more to his taste but sometimes she didn’t know what those were anymore.

He talked to her on the phone from the left side of the bed and she assumed things were different for him. Looking around the master suite, she realized how much he kept even from her.

A book on the bedside table about mastering inner Zen, Hal Leonard’s instructional book about guitar playing and the collective works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The philosophies didn’t surprise her but the guitar did. It had been too long since she watched an episode of Californication. Maybe Hank was going to learn to play guitar.

During the show, she could look at anything in his apartment and decide whether or not that was a gift or something he bought himself. Once they moved to Los Angeles, the idea of where his tastes entered his home were less and less. By the time she visited his place in Manhattan, she lost all sight of where he chose anything.

She thought about her own home and how much Mark had changed it from her tastes. There was the table that Felix cut his eye open on, the one that Mark insisted they keep in the sitting room. It wasn’t child friendly. The rug he picked out was too lumpy and a cut eye happened quicker than she could have anticipated.

She digressed as she looked around the space for a linen closet. Years ago, she had a proper tour where she got to see inside almost every nook and cranny like a potential buyer. Art pieces were shown off, giant chandeliers were gawked over and she appreciated the solar panelling above the garage because sustainable energy was a good fad to be apart of.

She remembered the master suite had a stocked closet and found herself in there after searching through the top floor more out of curiosity than to make a decision where to shower. She had free range of the house and he wasn’t there to rush her along. Although, she should be hurrying since he would be returning soon and she had another set of items he needed to put his name onto.

She looked around the bathroom for body wash or soap. She found a towel, some shampoo and conditioner and a bar of soap from Soaptopia. It called itself the Oracle Bar and she broke open the wrapping as a dig to him he would probably never know occurred. She inhaled the vanilla and sandalwood scent as she looked at the price tag that was stuck to her fingers.

It was such a Hollywood thing to spend seven dollars on a bar of natural soap. She was still admonishing the cost when she realized the scent was heavenly and probably worth every penny.

The room quickly filled with steam as she turned on the shower to a scalding temperature. She wanted to get every kiss off of her because the man waiting for her at JFK would know immediately otherwise.

He looked her dead in the eyes once and said to her it was a tragedy to be so deeply in love with someone who lied professionally for a living. They would eventually lie to you and you wouldn’t know whether it was authentic or put on.

She rinsed out her panties in the sink and left them to dry across the edge of the tub. A fleeting thought crossed her mind to soak away the scents of sex however she wasn’t planning to linger in that space longer than she needed to. She walked down the wooden steps from the deep tub and set her favoured linen dress on edge of the sharp corner.

The hair tie around her wrist was put to use to pull her hair up into a messy bun at the top of her head. She dipped her shoulders into the stream of water first to test the temperature. It was divine. Hot and burning at first while her body tried to attach itself to the fleeting thing of a downward trickle.

As she lathered her breasts, abdomen and thighs, she found herself humming a tune that reminded her of years gone by. It was when his voice began to hum the tune as well that she realized there was company inside the bathroom with her.

He was shedding the golf shirt, jeans and underwear he had on when he left. He kept the bracelets of prayer beads on and opened the shower door to join her with a delighted smile.

“This is better than the table sex,” he declared.

She raised an eyebrow as a throwback to her skeptical television counterpart and he smiled.

“Maybe a close second,” he said.

He took the soap from her hands and created a quick lather between his palms. Setting the bar of soap on the small tile shelf, he leaned into her and took her body in his hands again.

It was amazing someone could wash you as they made you sully with the dirty thoughts of fucking them again and again.

“Traffic was good,” he quipped as his hands moved up between her thighs and to her hip bones. “Food was ready when I got there. I’ll buy us lunch since I can tell you cleaned up my kitchen.”

“What would you have done with the dishes otherwise?” she asked him as she took the soap into her hands.

He probably could use a washing also and since he was there… it was only fair to offer him the same service.

She put her hands on his chest and his eyes closed immediately. His face transformed to one of innocent happiness as she did such a simple thing of washing his body with tender care. It was as though they were two other people in that moment. No one who liked to cheat or lie to someone they were with but people who belonged together, who had every right to fuck when they wanted and kiss in public places.

He was great at making her forget she belonged to other people. It worried her that she was hoping he could make her forget more frequently.

“I like showering with you,” he told her as he opened his eyes. He was smiling at her with such adoration. “Are you this fun all the time? With everyone else?”

She ran her hands down his body and rested them on his hips. “You mean, am I fun like this with anyone else besides you, outside of the man I’m married to?”

He nodded. “Would you tell me?”

“The last person besides you was insignificant and unfulfilling,” she told him.

He was completely hard now and she, still feeling the effects of what they did on the table, felt the tingling sensations of desire again.

“Man?” he asked and she made a face as to try to hide the truth. He closed his eyes as he tried to picture it. “Why wasn’t it fulfilling?”

“Empty sex only works with certain partners,” she told him and he rolled his eyes in understanding. “Since then, I’ve been trying to be good…”

“What a shame.” He said and kissed her forehead tenderly. “What about all the times we-”

“I never counted those against me,” she admitted. “Monogamy only works for me when every element is being reached. I don’t know if I’m every element for him either.”

“Does he know?” he asked, inferring to the trysts they had experienced over the years since they stopped trying to be completely good.

“Does she?”

“I’m pretty certain that she knew from the beginning,” he admitted.

Gillian’s eyebrows shot up and she felt herself cool immediately. That was too much to learn in a small space of his. She rinsed off her body and stepped out of the shower as he protested inside with a scoff.

“Woman,” he started as a joke as though he was reading a line from a script they barely made it through shooting without tearing each other’s clothes off on set. “Where are you going?”

She wrapped the towel around her torso and looked at the underwear drying on the tub. “I need some air.”

As she stepped onto the balcony off the master suite, she took a deep breath. The salty air from Malibu washed up from Point Dume and she looked around the waves to see windsurfers and swimmers paddling around. From there, they were small, detached and removed from her life.

“What happened?” he asked as he stepped behind her.

She looked down to the towel around his waist that matched the one she wore and she shook her head. “What are we doing?”

His hand found her ass and then moved up the damp towel to her shoulder blades. “We’re doing what we’ve always done.”

“Why didn’t you tell me she knew?” she asked as she looked from the white sandy shoreline to his eyes that looked somber but still wanting. “I thought she suspected something but not knew the whole story.”

“I told her as much as I could before the show ended,” he admitted and wrapped his arms around her waist. He kissed the side of her head. “It’s hard to lie accurately on your own script.”

“Why has she never said anything?” she asked.

She didn’t stop him from holding her or taking off the towel another man’s wife probably picked out. She didn’t leave him to spend the next three hours before her flight admonishing herself and their actions. She stayed as he held her with his arms wrapped around her waist and his evident desire pressing into her hip.

“I never asked why,” he said quietly.

She turned in his arms. “Why?”

“I didn’t care,” he said honestly. “I wanted to make this work so much, I never cared if she knew part of me was caught up on you.”

“You were?” she asked.

“I care about you,” he told her as though he was saying something else. “A lot.”

“Isn’t caring about someone else injurious to a marriage?” she asked.

“Nice word,” he noted.

“I thought you might appreciate that one,” she quipped.

The spot where the towel was secured under her arm loosened from his deft fingers. The sun warmed her body and she felt herself giving in to the feeling again. He knew when to let her relax or when to let her flex her concerns.

“It’s never been helpful,” he told her. “But I did my best.”

She sighed as the towel dropped around her feet. His towel pooled there too and he pushed her against the edge of the high balcony to kiss her with intent, passion and a love that she could only revel in away from the obligations of her home life.

Their exposure to the neighbourhood would be an issue they could worry about at a future date. When he broke the kiss, he looked at her with such wonder and wanton liberation. His fingers grazed down her ribcage to tickle a little before his fingertips pushed into the skin on her lower back.

This love didn’t ask her for bedtime stories or to be at business dinners as a show of support. This love appreciated her body and her person as a woman outside of all the shit the rest of the world asked of her. It was complicated to describe an uncomplicated relationship.

His kisses grew more needing and wanting of her body as his hands touched the skin being warmed by the burning sun. Amazing how in London or New York, the weather would be cool and snow might threaten to fall, whereas in Los Angeles at one o’clock in the afternoon, the temperatures were climbing over twenty five degrees Celsius. Her mind made the switch to Fahrenheit so he couldn’t accuse her of being completely brainwashed by the Brits.

The reality of their situation came back to her as his hands grabbed her ass more firmly. They were naked on his balcony while the sea called from two kilometres away and the neighbours would certainly be getting an eyeful.

“We need to go inside,” she whispered urgently as his hips moved between her thighs and his desire pressed against her.

She looked at the reckless attitude in his eyes and saw clearly he didn’t care who saw them. Not yet, not while it wasn’t costing them anything but it could and would down the road. Their history that was doomed to repeat itself time and time again could cost them so much. They were doing something so easy that felt so natural. It was all the other normal things they attempted that made life difficult.

The high balcony dug against her back as his urgent want for her nudged against her sex again. He had her once before yet his persistent fingers trying to pull her legs further apart were somehow making it seem as though it had been months. He was good at making her feel like she was so needed when she assumed there were others besides her that he used to ease the itch of living long distance from his wife.

His legs spread to level their faces and their sexes were toying with the idea of joining again. She felt herself getting swept away by the taste of his mouth and the argument he made with his body.

He wanted her and the basic truth was she wanted him too. Again and again, as much as they could withstand it until they were exhausted and couldn’t one last time but they would try anyway.

As it was, they couldn’t be satisfied with just once and never would be. They learned that in 1993 when a promising round of auditions left them feeling giddy. They could work out their excitement for a prospect at a job, a bit of money and the potential path that fucking might muddle if they gave in. They did anyway.

The consequences of their actions created a morning after situation that lasted nine years. The uncomfortable feeling of being around someone who knew every inch of your body but wasn’t yours came and went in waves. It never hindered their work because the chemistry of being tense and wanting always made the onscreen frisson bubble and burn.

Right now, he was grinning at her as though they shared a secret and the joke was on everyone else. When he could be like that with her, it was so damned endearing and desirable.

“Tell me you want me again,” he urged her.

“Tell me you want me,” she countered.

His hips moved against hers and he lifted her slightly. “I’ve always wanted you.”

She wrapped her legs around his hips and he slid inside in one long deep thrust that hit her at the very abject place of who she was. Deep inside, he hurt and gave her the pleasure she couldn’t find with anyone else.

They moaned in unison as their bodies grew accustomed to the change.

“You feel so good,” he said in wonder as he rocked his pelvis against hers.

Sparks felt like they were shooting through her as he did that, rubbing himself into her clit at the right pressure.

“How do you do that?” he said as he kissed her cheek and up to her forehead. “How do you feel like home?”  
  
Her head dropped back and she allowed herself to feel safe within his embrace as their hips began a shallow rhythm. He could make her feel lithe as she moved her hips in small circles against his purposeful thrusts. Their bodies pushed against one another on that quiet balcony with music echoing up from Point Dume.

The build toward release was beginning as her lips swelled. She felt the ache and burning of needing to touch herself, wanting to push the excitement further before anything halted between them. He was taking his time for himself and it was exquisite as much as it was maddening to feel the climb so slowly with such purposeful movements.

“Ugh, wait,” he said suddenly and pulled out of her quickly as he set her down.

She let out a whimper at the loss but he took her by the hand to pull her quickly into the room and sit her on the armchair in the corner of the room. She ignored the socks and shirt folded behind her backside. He knelt in front of her and pulled her legs open to reveal her sex to him.

She wondered as his tongue found her clit if he could still taste the remnants of their last encounter on her body or if the shower had washed it away. She felt so wet and swollen, she didn’t dare to ask him to stop. She needed to come and this time it was building to something intense.

He pulled one of her legs over his shoulder as he pushed two fingers inside her tight walls. His tongue flattened out and he was now manipulating everything she needed to truly find the exaltation she desired. She wanted to scream. She wanted to moan. She wanted to yell obscenities as he crooked his finger forward. It was a guttural moan that escaped her first and she closed her eyes tightly as he worked her clit until she fell over the edge.

“Ahhh..fuck you! You fucking fucker!” she yelled suddenly and his mouth chuffed a laugh as it buried against her.

His mouth persisted and the nerve endings inside her body suddenly fired off all at once. Amazing how it could begin at a small part of her and release endorphins that made her toes tingle and her brow sweat. His finger pushed a little harder inside her walls and she felt the waves wash over her again and an embarrassing amount of flush rush from her sex.

His fingers remained inside but his face pulled away to look up at her as her body continued to writhe against the soft chair.

“Fuck, that’s hot,” he said.

The familiar sound of his skin rubbing against his own swollen flesh and she looked down to see him pleasuring himself at the sight of her orgasm. She needed to be filled by him again and she got off the chair to climb into his lap on the floor. The bare wooden floor was hard on her knees as she straddled him but she didn’t care as she sunk down onto his cock.

“Say the thing,” he urged her as her hips met with his.

“Rocks from Mars!” she teased and her hips swivelled before she moved up.

He laughed as he maneuvered his legs in front of him and he pinched her backside. “The other thing.”

She looked at him in the eye as she had for nine seasons and two movies with too many watchful eyes waiting for them to pull one out of their ass from a purple prose.

“I love you.”

He kissed her lips. “I love you too.”

She believed him when he said it but she thought he loved everyone. He liked to say it to her so freely, as he fucked her in random places in his house that she assumed part of his problem with women was he could fall in love with them so easily. She didn’t blame him. Women were beautiful creatures to behold.

“Say it again,” she told him as she began to move up and down.

“God, I love you,” he told her.

“Liar,” she whispered as their hips began to hit each other with force and speed.

She put her arm behind her, changing the angle of the movement and they groaned again. She gripped onto his arm as the other pushed on the floor behind her for leverage. His mouth took one nipple in to suckle and kiss while his hands gripped her backside tightly.

The marks he left on her body would be more than the love bites but how hard he held her through all of this.

What a tragic tale of her life that the ebullience of their joining would be limited in her life to a few times a year. To be only find this kind of passion with someone you could never be in a relationship yet come back to time and time again must be the biggest form of self-torture.

Yet here they were, on the floor of his bedroom with the sounds of their bodies sliding against skin and their hips slamming into each other.

“Can you come again?” he asked.

Such a polite question from a man who had a finger from his left hand pushing on the muscle of her anus.

She nodded and his right hand moved between them. His thumb found her clit and she stilled her hips for a moment as his hands worked her like a sculpture manipulating clay into what it wanted. He was so dextrous and persistent.

“What if I did?” he asked as his thumb moved in small purposeful circles against her bundle of nerves.

Her eyes opened to him. “What are you suggesting?”

He shrugged. “What if I loved you?”

Her mouth met his and she tasted herself on his tongue. “You don’t have to.”

“What if I want to?”

His finger slipped inside her ass as his thumb moved faster against her clit. She felt herself breaking apart as he was proposing the idea of something more between them. It was overwhelming to fall into the vastness of the emotional chasm he created with a five word question.

Her skin tingled as the nerves from inside erupted into her orgasm. He kissed along her throat and he scratched against the skin on her shoulders with his prickly stubble. Her skin was on fire and she felt worn out.

“I think you have to try to extract yourself from your life before you could ask how to fit in mine,” she replied when her wits were about her.

His cock twitched inside of her. David was a man with a cock that worked everywhere he wished it to. He called it a curse as he pulled her into a bathroom at a movie premiere and disclosed all the ways he was being forced to humiliate himself to save his marriage. She understood both sides at the time but her heart ached for her friend.

Now, she was trying to navigate herself out of her own mess and wondering if anything was salvageable.

He pulled the tip of his finger from her ass and she shook her head with a rueful smile.

“What if this meant something to me?” he asked her quietly.

“Welcome to the club,” she replied.

He smiled, delighted at her admission. “Really?”

“It’s always meant something to me,” she told him and he nodded in agreement. If they were being honest with themselves, it wasn’t ever entirely hollow to find yourself experiencing the best sex of your life. It was just a lie they liked to tell themselves so they could do that and be married to other people.

She continued, “It only varied at how much and for what.”

He kissed her lips again but it was sweet and soft.

“I feel like I should take you to a bed instead of fucking you on the floor in the middle of the room,” he admitted.

“Would that mean it’s something to you?” she asked as she pushed herself to stand off his lap. Her knees ached from rubbing against the hardwood.

David slowly stood up and kissed the back of her hand. “Come on.”

He took her over to the side of the bed and pushed the decorative pillows aside. They laid down as he kissed her and worked his way on top of her body. She spread her legs for him as he nestled between her thighs. He pushed inside her slowly and she felt herself in that safe space again.

“You have a remarkable way of looking sexy and sad at the same time,” he told her as her feet pushed into the mattress. “It really kills me.”

Slowly, he pulled back his hips and slammed into her fiercely. He kissed her as he pumped in and out of her. His movements were getting less precise and she felt him shaking above her. Her kisses became insistent and he groaned into her mouth as he shuddered one final time.

Their kiss broke and he swore under his breath. There was a quiet moment of sweetness between them they hadn’t had in ages until he pulled out of her abruptly.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He nodded but his back was to her so she couldn’t read the expression on his face. If he had regrets for what he said to her earlier, she wouldn’t know until later on.

“I told you that face kills me,” he said solemnly but she didn’t think that was it.

The thought of priorities entered her mind suddenly. She needed to clean herself up and get the items signed before she left that day. Whatever incentive he needed to be charitable had been given to him freely and openly.

When she returned from the bathroom with her dress over her body and her underwear in hand, he crossed the room to kiss her again.

“Seriously, are you okay?

“Yeah,” he assured her.

The look in his eyes almost convinced her but she decided to leave it there.

“I’m going to head downstairs and get some food,” she said and there was an awkward beat. “David?”

He nodded. “I’ll be right down.”

When he joined her in the kitchen, she had the food unpacked and set onto plates for them near the stack of items ready for him. He grinned at her and kissed the top of her head before he sat across from her at the table.

“Ready?”

“I’ve been properly motivated,” he said as he signed the first item. “I’m ready.”

She licked her bottom lip and picked up her fork. “Next time I’ll know to cut out the middle man and come here myself.”

He signed his name across the next photograph and set it onto the pile he was creating. “How’s your food?”

She nodded. “Not bad for vegetarian whatever this is.”

“Gluten free, vegetarian, Thai noodle salad,” he told her.

She shook her head. “High maintenance meal for one.”

“I ordered us the pretentious bullshit meal for two actually,” he quipped. “With a side of fries.”

She laughed. “Is there a Coke in there for me?”

“No if you order that here, they give you the _other_ thing,” he told her and they both laughed.

That much would be true for California.

“What happens now?” he asked casually even though the request was heavy. “When do I get you all to myself again?”

“I’ll be back in July,” she said.

“Alone?” The hope in his voice was heartbreaking.

“That’s the plan but we’ll see,” she said knowing Mark could change his plans last minute to spoil a rendezvous they arranged. “We’ll have some time-”

“You and me we?” he clarified.

“If you can fix your schedule, I can try to fix mine,” she said.

He shook his head. “I think this is the first time we made a plan to make a plan so far ahead of time.”

“Don’t get nervous,” she noted and he laughed.

“You first.”


End file.
